HUNGRY.

Setting goals is SO HARD. How many goals is the right amount? How do I stick to them? How do I track them? I don’t even know what I want to do, so how can I set goals? This raucous rigmarole percolates my mind - a washing machine of confusion. But, If Dreams give Life, Goals give Purpose. Goals are vital. This year’s final episode of Hungry is with the wonderful Sam Wigan , Life Coach, co-founder...

Hungry is fed by our by our utterly-wonderful sponsors, Bowimi and Mackenzie Jones.  Both will CATEGORICALLY save you time, energy, stress and improve your life as a challenger food and drink brand… Oh! And they are lovely, lovely people, too. BOWIMI - Food & Drink Founders and Sales Teams.  BOWIMI makes you better at your job and saves you stress, time and improves your bottom line. Save time...

3 am. Wide awake. Even at £100 million turnover, the sleepless nights never go away. Ed Perry founder of COOK struggles and suffers. I bloody love COOK. COOK coalesced through my childhood Spag bowls, Fish Pies, Lasagne Warm hugs in cold freezers. Palaver of a Day - Choccy pud pud melts the stress away Ed's built a marvellous mensch of a business: * For the last 9 years, COOK’s featured in the top...

This episode is a wonderful collaboration with the design wizards and complete legends Barry Darnell & Mike Johns , co-founders of Analogue **Thank me later, download the presentation deck here.  What ON EARTH ACTUALLY is a brand?  I ask all guests.   Fountains of wisdom surface   “Brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room" - Ed Williams & Jamie Laing, Candy Kittens  "...

My inner critic is right little mendacious bastard More annoying than he who wears GymShark to the pub Or she who works in P.R. with a “side hustle” An Interior Design Instagram page for a two-upper, two-downer… "just off” Wandsworth Common My malignant thoughts curdle Hot-spikes of self doubt join the party “You’re not good enough” “That was a pile of shit” “DO MORE” When the miffed-malaise seeps...

In 17 years, Sam didn’t interview ONE black person. Out of 10,000's of brands in Major UK retail, only 4 are black owned. Unconscious racism scurries through the underbelly. Its ghoulish ghosts linger in the shadows. Until 2020, post George Floyd. Sam Akinluyi felt a raw-stinging, deep-throbbing laceration. Laceration catalysed action. Sam founded Add Psalt a non-profit helping black founders ente...

 Imagine for one, tiny iota, ickle smidge of a milli-second WINNING a Sainsbury's and Tesco listing *WITHOUT* even pitching. Enter &SODA The power of packaging. Gorgeously-wild - plunges you into Party time tonight. Let’s Be Havin Ya’-Liquid. DC-10/10 flavour. Glugg-back-Glasto. Tastes like Techno. Barry Darnell is founder of &SODA and analogue and is the latest guest on Hungry We wax lyri...

What's your Everest?   Every brand is summiting their own Everest.  Starting a brand is HARD.   Marching through the arduous abyss.  Spencer Mathews is a fountain of grit, resilience and self-awareness.   Why?  He does HARD things regularly.   Ice-Ultra Marathon’s across spine-shatteringly cold vistas.   Or   The Marathon Des Sables  a six-day, 251 km ultramarathon in screaming-frying-pan-heat. A...

A Colombian Carnival glided down my gullet Coquettishly carousing my taste buds Dark and Zesty over ice. Rolling-your-toes-through-sand-Blisss Even slipped into my Havianna sandals-with-a-cheeky-strap - you ok hun? "ALEXAAAAAAAA - Daddy’s home, put on Daddy’s fave - Texas "Inner Smile” Caleno is bamboozingly banging. Fiesta of Flavour sans Full-English Hangxiety Caleno’s delicious success: won lis...

Suffocating rain slowly screamed down just before Christmas. Hunkered at a bus stop in Islington. Hiding. Gorging on chocolate bars to escape gut-wrenching pain. At the final minute, OLLY’s lost HUGE sums of funding A signed-sealed-delivered-I’m-Yours deal...GONE. KAPOOCH. “Let’s sack it off” “Find another job” menaced through Olly’s mind. But, like, all great leaders, Sergeant Snack-a-nator came...

Pressure. Perfection. Stress. Suffering. Teamwork. Trust. Authentic Creativity. Delicious leadership lessons bubble in the kitchen and spill in the board room. Leading a brigade of chefs or challenger brands are the same. The latest guests on HUNGRY. are James Cochran and Dan Henry. James’ career sparkles: - Worked under Bret Graham at The Ledbury, taking it from a 1 to 2 Michelin Star * - becomin...

"Rockstar Entrepreneur" is the BIGGEST load of tripe. Instagram added a vacant veneer A razzle-dazzle romanticism to entrepreneurship. Fake Gnashers. Faux Gold. “Swipe Up for my course on How I Sold 500,000 Bits-of-Coin from the Homebase car park” "YOOO’ flying PJ” - on photoshop in their PJ’s waiting for Lasagne and Garlic bread to *bing* People pine to be a Pearly White founder. The issue? Compl...

HANDS DOWN my favourite day of the year.  Even tops when I got a pair of Heeleys (with green lights) for my 25th.  Summer yawns, the sun shudders in the high blue skies like a white marble.  Meatopia an unctuous utopia of unreal grub.  A bacchanalian flame-soaked meteorite of food, fire and booze.  This Little Piggy went Tobacco Docks, “Me, Eat” - stuffing my face, Notorious P.I.G. style.  Washed...

Riverford, desperately needed consumers to understand their “WHY". But How? Enter Perry Haydn Taylor Hayden Taylor. Perry and Riverford Organic Farmers 's founder, Guy Singh-Watson escaped the brash, banal board room. They went surfing in Devon. Under boundless blue skies, sat on a rock, watching the rolling glittering waves. Salty sea air greased their conversation, Perry dug deep. Deep Deep Deep...

I always dreamt of this marriage. In 2020, the first time, my Frodo-saucisson-fingers slapped the record button. I dreamed of marrying an O.G challenger with a buccaneering brand with bigger-than-BIG dreams. Keir Carnie , Edward Williams and Jamie Laing are THE puuurrrrfect trio. Ed and Jamie, co-founders of Candy Kittens Gourmet sweets tickle my inner-glutton glutton into gleeful bliss. CK's garg...

HOW SEEDLIP PIONEERED THE LOW-TO-NO CATEGORY AND WON LISTINGS AT WAITROSE, M&S, OCADO AND MICHELIN STAR RESTAURANTS - BEN BRANSON   This conversation CHANGED EVERYTHING.   Ben taught me, NATURE IS EVERYTHING.   Hold ya horses -   You may think,  I’m slipping into a pair of Tom’s, carousing through Tooting Bec, fondling Daphodiles, listening to Tame Impala (sounds banging tbf)   It’s NOT.   Nat...

STOP thinking like a Challenger Brand, please. Zipping n’ zinging through the Challenger zeitgeist is a David vs. Goliath mentality. Post BrewDog , challenger brands act like Punk Bands. Minor Figures took a screw-that view and forged a new path. They act like a FUNK BAND. Stuart Forsyth , taught me: "We play our groove and let our people come dancing” Mind-bendingly banging products. Weird. Lurid...

If Willy Wonker chinned a few shandy’s and fornicated with Lego Land. Their love child? Pleesecakes . Scrolling through their Insta, irreverent and utterly unctuous. Cathedrals of Cheese cake, coquettish and magnificent, doused in delicious decoration. Mind-bendingly banging. Pleese Me, Pleese Me, Pleese Me - Teeeasee me babyyy, Til’ I lose control My Childhood-Curiosity carouses with my Dad-Bod g...

An electric pudding of nerves - pacing and pacing and pacing. Foiled in ferocious imposter syndrome. Barrages of self-doubt pinged and zinged around my nut like furious pinballs. "My first EVER DRAGON on the poddy!??!” “I CANNAE do this, Dan-ae?!" Sarah Willingham's career sparkles: - Head of International Expansion at PizzaExpress and Planet Hollywood - Bought, built and sold the UK’s largest cha...

WIN FREE SAUCE SHOP SCOTCH BONNET CHILLI JAM (IT'S SOOO BANGING!!) We're running a deliciously sauuucyyyy competition for this episode - WIN Scotch Bonnet Chilli Jam - take your sarnies or BBQ to a different stratosphere!! How? Simples. 1. Please SHARE this pod episode on your LinkedIn or Instagram stories 2. TAG ME. LinkedIn:  Daniel Pope or Instagram: _hungry.pod 3. We'll select  a WINNER at ran...

Stoicism is THE operating system for F&B founders to smash through struggle.  My latest guest on HUNGRY. is  Ed Hauck, co-founder The Curators.  Ed, like me, is fascinated with stoicism.  The Curators curate a smorgasbord of scrumptious snacks: Jerky, Billtong, Chorizo sticks, Pork Puffs and Peanuts.  They’ve won listings at: Waitrose, Sainsbury's, TESCO, Morrisons  My goal with our conversati...

In 2006, finally, something erupted. Health food was an imbroglio of crusty and boggey-fied, innocuous yet alienating food. Glib green and banal brown shelves had less personality than a broken Asthma pump in a hospital car park. A cacophony of precocious cardboard-with-a-conscience. In 2006, thankfully, a TECTONIC SHIFT ERUPTED!!! Lashings of lurid orange and green and pink and red lava spilled o...

Never been SO NERVOUS to publish a podcast. Somedays, my mental health is a magnificent malignant feast. Self-esteem like a feeble Pringle in a February puddle. A seething swap of mucky self-doubt, pillaging positivity. Nuclear explosions of imposter syndrome erupt through my noggin. “You’re not good enough!” “Why bother?” “That was sh*t you scum bag”” My latest guest on HUNGRY. is Harry Turpin, a...

At the door step, everything eased. Mind churning like miffed butter, flecked with F*ck-me-there’s-just-too-much-on! One of those INTENSE days. Emails eviscerating Zen, to-do lists trampling Calm. Instant Gratification masquerading as Instagram: scrolling your way to shameful oblivion. Mindful Chef is more than a recipe box. A panacea against the pummelling of putrid notifications. Banging recipes...

My sleepy inner glutton woke in wild alarm with furious wet eyes. Mooching through carbohydrate cathedrals of pasta and sarnies and sourdough. Blistered rust-coloured chicken, chips with a glass-shattering crisp, swimming in a swamp of glistening gravy. Pummelled with dish after dish of dee-lish. Tom Straker’s food is other-worldly and soul-nourishing. MANZZ GOT THA FOOOOOOD CUZZZZ. Tom is the lat...